The Family Business
by C.M. Kelly
Summary: Part 1: With So Weird never getting the ending it deserved, I've convinced myself that in many ways, Supernatural could be a distorted continuation of its storyline. Hopefully someone else may also appreciate a plot arc. Original stories to follow.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Not so much a cross-over as it is a distorted _Supernatural_-based continuation of the _So Weird_ plot... and the arc would go a little something like this:

Chapter One

Fi Phillips' least favorite holiday was vastly approaching. The decorations were everywhere, a mockery of all the things she had put behind her for a normal life. She had given up hunting the paranormal over four years ago, moving to Seattle to finish high school. Staying in one place let her focus on her school work, and her impressive academic performance got her into a nationally acclaimed college, Stanford University. It was there that she lived with her boyfriend, Jesse, in a quiet apartment complex near campus. After losing touch with her mother and brother, Jesse and her friends at Stanford were the only family Fi had left.

She hadn't spoken to her older brother in years. His new lifestyle made it impossible for her to keep a relationship with him while maintaining her accumulated sense of normalcy at the same time. And most times, she didn't mind. She had Jesse. The conversation of marriage had been coming up a lot lately. Her life was average, which Fi found more exciting than the alternative.

Even more exciting to Fi was her interview with the graduate school at Stanford that upcoming Monday, which she scored after acing the LSTAT. She was finally happy. But that couldn't last long.

After a night out with friends, Fi rested peacefully in her shared bed. She had made it through a Halloween party, even though she still refused to dress up for the occasion. She was almost asleep when she thought she heard the opening of a window outside her bedroom.

Her eyes blinked open, her natural instincts coming back to her all at once. She grabbed the nearest object she could use as a weapon against the intruder. She decided not to wake Jesse, just in case it was a paranormal piece of crap back from her past. She'd avoided bringing up her true past to anyone here at Stanford thus far. There was no use in ruining that streak now if she didn't need to.

That's when she saw the shadow of a man move past the beaded curtain of her living room. She smiled inwardly , relieved it was just a man. She would gladly take on a good old fashioned burglar over anything supernatural any day.

She pressed herself against the wall of the next room, allowing him to walk past her. That's when she sprung on the shadow, taking a swing at him from behind. The figure fought back, and after a brief struggle, it was Fi who wound up on the ground, allowing the moonlight to illuminate her attacker's face.

"Whoa, easy, Tiger," he smirked.

"Jack?" she asked, perplexed. "You scared the crap out of me!"

"Nice to see you too, little sis," he grinned.

She returned the gesture, smiling at the fact he hadn't changed, before reversing his hold.

"Or not," he quipped from the ground. "Get off me."

"Self-defense course," she said, extending an arm to help her brother up.

She noticed he still wore the same protection amulet around his neck: an angel, his guardian. He looked so much older than Fi was used to, displaying some stubble on his face. When she'd left he could hardly grow a beard. His dark hair was cut close to his head. His eyes appeared tired, and his voice had gotten deeper.

"Jack, what the hell are you doing here?"

"Well I _was_ looking for a beer," Jack joked.

The lights suddenly came on in the living room. The two took a second to adjust their eyes.

"Fi?" Jesse asked, still in just his boxers.

"Jess, hey" Fi answered, hesitant to explain the situation.

Jack glared at the tall blond with a furrowed brow before turning to his sister. Before a fight could ensue, Fi broke the silence.

"Jack," she said. "This is my boyfriend, Jesse."

"Wait, your brother, Jack?" he asked, stunned.

Jack didn't answer, still taking in the nearly naked man in his baby sister's apartment.

"Let me go put something on," Jesse interrupted, suddenly realizing the reason for Jack's scowl.

"No, no. I wouldn't dream of it," Jack replied sarcastically. "Anyway, I've got to borrow your girlfriend here. Talk about some private family business."

Jack started to return to the side of his sister, adding with a roll of his eyes, "but, you know, nice meeting you."

"No," Fi protested, disliking her brother's tone. "No, whatever you want to say, you can say it in front of him."

She walked over to Jesse and pulled him close to her.

"Okay," Jack agreed. "Mom hasn't been home in a few days."

"She's a musician. That's what musicians do. I'm sure she'll stumble back in sooner or later," she answered, taking a jab at her mother's past battle with the bottle.

Jack smiled, ignoring his sister's insult. She'd grown up a lot since he'd seen her last. She'd grown taller, leaner. And the tough-guy façade she was putting on reminded him of their mother.

"Mom's on a _hunting_ trip," he added, "and she hasn't been home in a few days."

His face took on a serious expression with these words, followed by Fi's.

"Jess, excuse us," she said to her boyfriend, reflecting on what her brother had just implied.

_Impossible_, she thought to herself. For years, her mother had denied the existence of the paranormal. She had begged her mother repeatedly to believe her, always getting the same denial for support. The last argument they ever had before she left for Seattle was due to this very conflict. There was no way Molly had changed her tune now, after all this time.


	2. Chapter 2

"Jack, I don't get what you're telling me," Fi let out once they were inside her brother's vintage muscle car.

"Well, Fi, after you left, things were… different. A lot different."

"I knew _you_ were doing this, but Mom?"

"I couldn't do it on my own," Jack said with an uneasy grin.

"Sure you could," Fi answered.

"Yeah, but I didn't want to," he replied, starting the car's engine.

It growled over the silence of the night, but it couldn't hush Fi's racing thoughts.

She'd known her destiny. Her life of paranormal occurrences all suddenly made sense after reading a piece of Irish folklore in the mythology class she took her senior year of high school. She had been repressing the story all this time, trying to escape it.

It was the tale of Fionn, a hero of Irish folk tales, who saved the world from a fire-emitting demon using supernatural weapons. But defeating the demon wasn't enough for Fionn. He insisted on some sort of otherworldly repayment to avenge his father's death, which he received in the form of immortality. However, Fionn misconstrued his reward. It wasn't true immortality he was given; He would be reincarnated, generation after generation, always living the same life of hunting the paranormal, and avenging the death of a father killed when he was just a baby.

Or when "she" was a baby, in Fi's case. She had tried to deny the similarities, but their strength made the task impossible. "Fiona" was, after all, a family name, passed down the line of her Irish ancestors for hundreds of years. She knew their history, their involvement in the paranormal, their practice of witchcraft. She knew it all. But if she wanted to maintain the average life with Jesse she had come to love, she would need to keep it all a secret. Even from Jack, who after all this time would finally believe her.

She turned her head towards her brother, who was staring out onto the road from the driver's seat. Ever since they lost their father, Jack took it upon himself to be her protector. It's just how it had always been. Jack chocked it up to him being her big brother.

"It's my job," he'd say.

But he risked his life for her on more than one occasion, going beyond the expectant duties of any big brother. There was more to his motives that no one but Fi knew. Protecting her was his true purpose.

She'd only realized it some years ago, at the theater her aunt was performing in. Seeing her brother joking around, play-fighting in that prop suit of armor, had triggered something in her memory. She received images from generations past of her most trusted companion. He was always her brother in these visions, and always a knight of sorts.

Just like the Jack she had known growing up together on the road, these knights wouldn't dabble in the details of her supernatural occurrences. They wouldn't question them, wouldn't get involved, until it was time to protect their generations' Fionn and fight. Even if it meant sacrificing himself, the knight would not let Fionn take on a battle without him.

This is why it didn't shock Fi when she had learned of Jack's new devotion to the paranormal. Fi tried to fight off a destiny that was bound to happen. Jack was doing the only thing he could to protect his baby sister - seek out what they would be up against and find a way to stop it. But Molly on the other hand… Fi still couldn't figure out what had driven her mother to give in.

"In case you're wondering, it was Dad," Jack broke in, not taking his eyes off the road.

"Huh?" Fi glanced curiously at her brother, coming out of her thoughts.

"That's why Mom started hunting."

"Dad's been dead for years, Jack. Why now?"

"She confessed something to me a few years back, after you left. She uh, she started to come undone a little bit," he spoke with a hint of resentment in his voice. "She started drinking again, broke down, told me everything…"

Fi winced at her brother's story. She knew her mother's old habits had returned because of her departure. She knew that was the risk she would be taking by leaving, but she needed to escape so badly. Their last argument played in Fi's head as her brother took a moment to catch his breath.

"_You had me convinced he was still around."_

_Fi stood across from her mother silent, too afraid to interrupt her. This conversation was long overdue. It needed to happen but Fi had never pushed her mother so far before._

"_I couldn't grieve his death because I could still feel him, smell him, hear his voice," Molly continued. It's been almost two decades of this, Fi. As a little girl you'd ask me every night if Daddy was ever coming home. I'd try my best to explain, 'No, baby. Daddy's in Heaven,' and prayed for the day you'd be old enough to understand that he was gone."_

_Molly inhaled deeply. Fi couldn't bring herself to look at her mother, but judging by the shakiness of her voice she imagined her eyes swollen with tears. Molly's speech was slowing with each sentence, her pauses increasing._

"_I needed closure for all of us. But years later, there you were, Fiona, still asking when and how. I thought the pain of it all was going to kill me. Then suddenly, about a year ago, when I felt like I could not possibly keep going… It all stopped."_

_Fi's chest sunk at these words. She calculated the timeframe her mother hinted at. One year ago. That day on the roof in New York. The day Fi almost died, and the last time she saw the spirit of her father._

"_I didn't feel your dad around me all the time," Molly continued. "I started to finally, finally heal. I found peace. And now here we are again."_

_Fi's face begun to burn._

"_I can't apologize for that, Mom. I want to say I'm sorry, but I can't lie to you. Finding what killed Dad, bringing him back, it's all real."_

"_To you, Fi. It's all real to you, and no one else. I want so badly to support you on this, but it isn't reality. So for that, I'm sorry."_

"_Don't say that, Mom. Don't say that. You just told me you felt him here and now you don't. That's what I've been saying all along. That's what I've been trying to show you." _

"_I can't, Fi," Molly gritted her teeth. " I'm your mother and I will not stop trying to save you from this. These notions you're having are detrimental. You will drive yourself out of your mind if you keep on believing in the same crazy things your father did. And I know it will be a long process, and I'm willing to get you the help you need-"_

"_I need _you_, Mom! I need _you_." _

"_I _am _here for you, Fiona. You know I'll always be here for you."_

"_So help me find it. Help me save Dad!"_

"_You can't ask that of me, Fi. I don't believe in it!"_

"_Just pretend. For me, please. Just pretend! Pretend he's still alive and that he's in danger and he needs our help."_

"_You're asking me to pretend my dead husband is alive. Do you hear yourself? You couldn't imagine-"_

Fi stopped her flashback before it could play out any further. It was all too painful.

"She was faking, Fi, all those years."

"Faking what?" Fi asked, knowing the answer all along.

"She knew what's out there. That's why she kept us on the road. She was hunting the whole time you were. She let you take on the things you found as training, always keeping a watchful eye. Just in case… in case you needed to use those skills one day."

Fi couldn't believe all her suspicions were finally confirmed.

"It was Dad's death that started it," Jack let on, not allowing a response from his sister. "All this time, she's been looking for the thing that killed him."

Fi should have felt more shock from this revelation, but within her, she had known it to be true. The selective secrets Molly had let slip throughout the years were too carefully revealed. Her mother had to have known just what she was trying to protect her daughter from.


	3. Chapter 3

Five hours passed before the siblings reached their destination: Jericho, a small, dusty town like the ones they had seen many times growing up. It all started to make more and more sense with the confirmation of Molly's true intentions. Fi had always wondered how it happened that the bus would so often break down or crash in these dingy places without Molly firing Ned for being so irresponsible. He and Irene must have been in on it too. She wondered how much the Bells were really involved in her mother's cover-up as Jack pulled up to an old bridge riddled with policemen.

He pulled an old cigar box from under his seat and handed it to Fi.

"I made these, just in case," he grinned, indicating the fake identity cards.

"FBI?" Fi squeaked, holding one up.

_I guess we _have_ gotten a little too old for the "curious kid" act,_ she thought.

She grabbed an ID nervously and followed her brother's lead. Shouldn't they look the part? she wondered. They were still in jeans.

"You fellas had another like this just last month, didn't you?" Jack asked confidently to a man wearing a sheriff's badge.

"Who are you?" the officer quickly replied.

Fi did her best to calm her nerves, choosing to let Jack do all the talking.

"Federal Marshalls," he answered, giving a quick flash of his badge.

"You two are a little young for Marshalls, aren't you?"

Fi tried to suppress a grin at her brother's quick thinking as he convinced the officer of their legitimacy.

"So this victim, you knew him?" Fi finally spoke up.

"Town like this," the officer answered, "everybody knows everybody."

As their banter continued, Fi detected that Jack's quips were making the officer suspicious of them once again, and she quickly pressed a heel into his toes as a signal of retreat.

"Thanks for your time, gentlemen," she stammered, pulling her brother away.

Getting some feet away from the crime scene, Fi shook her head in disapproval. Jack gave a playful swipe to the back of her head, frowning.

"Ouch, what was that for?" she spat.

"Why do you always have to step on my foot?"

"Why do you have to talk to police like that?"

"C'mon!" Jack sighed. "They don't really know what's going on. We're all alone on this. I mean if we're going to find Mom, we've got to get to the bottom of this thing ourselves."

"Can I help you two?" another officer said from behind them, interrupting Jack's rant.

"No, Sir. We were just leaving," Jack answered, unable to resist adding, "Agent Mulder, Agent Scully," nodding at the passing FBI agents. Fi rolled her eyes at his comments as pushed her brother onward.

* * *

><p>"That must be her," Jack said, indicating a young woman standing before them along the shopping strip.<p>

They had overheard a conversation at the bridge about the victim's girlfriend putting flyers up around town.

Fi mustered up an alibi about being distant cousins of the victim to hear out the girl's account of what happened to him the night he disappeared.

The girl, who wore heavy eyeliner and dark clothes, told the siblings that she'd been speaking with her boyfriend on his cell phone on his ride home when he'd suddenly ended their conversation. It wasn't until the girl brought up a local urban legend that they managed to form a solid lead.

"Well with all the men disappearing around here," she mumbled, "people talk."

"What do they talk about?" Fi and Jack replied in unison, giving each other a quick look of confusion before focusing back on the girl.

She went on to explain the story of the a phantom hitchhiker. According to local legend, the ghost of a woman who died in the town years ago haunts a stretch of road, luring men to their deaths if they pull over to give her a ride.

Jack raised an eyebrow at his sister, pursing his lips in thought. He laced his fingers, ready to get cracking on the case at hand.

* * *

><p>Fi looked on in frustration at her brother's sad excuse for computer skills. He kept typing various keywords about local murders in the search bar, yielding no results. Fi finally couldn't bare it any longer and pushed him aside, taking over the keyboard.<p>

"Angry spirits are born out of violent deaths, right?" she asked rhetorically, logging onto the website she'd resisted deleting all these years. "Maybe it wasn't murder."

Pulling up her So Weird webpage, she began to research local suicides, resulting in the discovery of an article from 1981. A woman had jumped off the same bridge they'd visited earlier that day after reporting her children dead. They'd drowned in the bath tub. She left behind no other family except for a grieving husband.

Fi frowned, noticing her last login date was just last week, instead of the four-years-past date she had expected to find.

"It's a useful site," Jack shrugged.

"Well, thanks, but you could've made your own account," she retorted, defensively.


	4. Chapter 4

Later that night, they returned to the bridge to search for more clues. Fi couldn't help noticing that this case was becoming a distraction from the search for their mother.

"Well, she's chasing the same story and we're chasing her," Jack responded when she voiced her concern.

"Okay, so now what?" she asked in frustration.

"We keep digging 'til we find her. It might take a while."

"Jack, I told you. I have to be back by-"

"Monday," Jack cut in, nodding. "Right. The interview. Yeah, I forgot."

Fi let a beat pass, piecing together her brother's true intentions.

"You're really serious about this aren't you?" he added. "You really think you're just going to become some lawyer, marry your boyfriend?"

"Yeah, why not?" Fi shot back.

"Well does Jesse know the truth about you? I mean, does he know about the things you've done?" he asked in a harsher tone than Fi was used to.

"No. And he's not ever going to know," Fi said, narrowing her eyes at her brother.

"Well that's healthy," Jack responded sarcastically. "You can pretend all you want, Fiona, but sooner or later you're going to have to face up to who you really are."

Fi stood, stunned for a moment. She couldn't believe the same person who had pretended to despise her supernatural obsession for so many years had just hinted at her destiny. She wondered if Jack really knew what she did about Fionn and the role he was meant to play in it all.

"This is not going to be my life," she insisted, moving in front of him as he tried to walk away.

"You have a responsibility," Jack sighed, not wanting to elaborate.

"To who? To Mom? And her sudden… _crusade_? What difference does it make? Even if we do find the thing that killed Dad," Fi slowed her breath, finding it harder to maintain eye contact with her brother, "he's gone, and he isn't coming back."

She became nervous with the sudden glare in Jack's eyes.

"I never thought I'd hear those words come out of your mouth," he said behind gritted teeth, clutching his necklace to restrain himself. "For years, I had to hear you talk about how he wasn't really gone. How he was still here, watching over us. I had to pretend you were crazy, like I couldn't feel him here the whole time! And now that I've given in and embraced this, all the weird, supernatural _crap_, just to save his soul, to save _you_, you're going to change your story? I don't think so," he spat, quickly turning to escape.

Before he could take a step, he saw her. The ghost of Constance Welch, the woman who had taken her life on that very bridge decades ago.

"Fi," he said sternly.

She moved to his side in disbelief at the figure. She hadn't seen a spirit in so long. She'd forgotten how human they looked.

Fi felt a chill in her bones as the ghost turned and locked eyes with her. She instinctively grabbed a hold of her brother's arm.

That's when they saw the ghost's white shape dive over the edge of the bridge.

"No!" Fi emitted as she and Jack ran to where the ghost was standing.

"Where'd she go?" Jack asked, looking over the side.

"I don't know," Fi answered, but was interrupted by the stir of the Mustang's loud engine.

The siblings turned to see the car's headlights illuminated.

"What the-" Jack let out.

"Who's driving your car?" Fi questioned.

Jack answered her by pulling its keys from his jacket pocket, dangling them.

With that, the car growled, racing forward toward Jack and Fi. They looked on for another moment, stunned at the ghost's power, before grabbing onto each other and making a run out of the car's path.

"Go! Go!" Fi yelled mindlessly, pumping her legs towards the end of the bridge.

The car was catching up to them. They wouldn't make it off the bridge in time. They needed to jump. She looked at her brother before leaping over the edge, Jack doing the same.

The Mustang came to a screeching holt.

"Jack!" Fi shouted down to her brother, after hoisting herself back onto the bridge from the metal piece she had clung to.

"Hey, you alright?" she added, seeing him crawl out from the murky water under them.

"I'm super," he joked longwindedly, throwing an "OK" sign her way with his thumb and forefinger.

Seeing he was alright, and covered in mud, Fi couldn't help but let out a light laugh.

* * *

><p>"Car alright?" Fi asked once they were both back by the Mustang.<p>

"Yeah. Whatever she did to it, it seems alright now," Jack sighed, leaning against the car's hood, adding, "That Constance chick, what a bitch!"

"Well, she doesn't want us digging around, that's for sure."

Jack let out another sigh in frustration. He'd become quite attached to the old blue Mustang ever since he no longer had to share it with his best friend. Keeping the thing running had been the perfect distraction from his sister's absence after she'd left him for college.

"You know, it's weird," Fi mumbled aloud to herself before turning to her brother, who was still pouting. "I've never known a ghost to _not_ want help. Any spirit I've encountered before, well, that was kind of the whole point."

"This one's different, Fi. She's a vengeful spirit," Jack explained. "She didn't die in some freak accident. She's not looking for some ghost intervention."

Fi chewed the notion for a second.

"So, these are the kinds of cases Dad used to take on, and that Mom was taking on the road? The bad ones?" she asked.

"Looks like it."

This gave Fi an added feeling of relief. Knowing her mother had the experience to go up against the nastiest of ghosts assured her that she was still alive. She peaked over at her brother with a smile as he inspected his muddy clothes.

"You smell like a toilet," she joked.

* * *

><p>They decided to get themselves a hotel room, get in a good night's sleep before continuing the case. At the hotel, they discovered that someone with the some false moniker on Jack's credit card had checked in for the month. Knowing it had to be their mother, they broke into the room. They found it unoccupied, besides the endless plaster of newspaper clippings that lined the walls.<p>

Jack turned on a light, exposing protective salt rings on the floor, cat's eye shells on the dresser, and spoiled food on the night stand. Fi took in the room's contents in disbelief. She ran her fingers through the salt on the ground. Their mother really knew what she was doing.

"I don't think she's been here for a couple days, at least," Jack determined.

"Salt? Cat's eye shells? She was worried. Trying to keep something from coming in," Fi said to her brother with a look of concern on her face.

Jack walked over to a wall of clippings whose contents showed years worth of victims who died on the same highway Constance Welch was said to haunt.

"Mom figured it out," Fi cut in, pointing to an book page that was hung up on the wall, confirming their ghost was indeed a Woman in White.

"Then why wouldn't Mom have burned the body?" Jack inquired aloud to himself.

"We can go talk to the husband, see if we can find out where she's buried?" Fi volunteered.

"Alright, I'm going to get cleaned up," Jack added, still in his muddy clothes. "See if you can find an address."

"Hey, Jack," Fi looked over at her brother. "About what I said earlier, about Mom and Dad, and for pushing you into all of this, I'm sorry-"

"Hey," Jack stopped her mid-apology. "No chick flick moments."

At this, Fi grinned.

"Alright, _Jerk_," she said to him, smirking.

"_Bitch_," he quipped back before walking away.

_Just like old times_, Fi laughed to herself, smiling.


	5. Chapter 5

Once Jack cleaned himself off, he got dressed and left the hotel for a quick food run. While putting on his jacket, he noticed the same policeman from the bridge the day before interviewing the hotel manager, who was now pointing in his direction. He hid his face and quickened his steps, retreating towards his car. Pulling out his cell phone, he had just enough time to warn Fi to bail, before the officer approached him.

Even after some hours of interrogation down at the police station, Jack still wouldn't break. They were blaming him for the contents of his mother's hotel room - the missing persons reports, the protective relics, everything. He just rolled his eyes, giving a cocky smirk. He'd come a long way from being a geeky teenager with bad jokes and bad hair. Couldn't manage to shake the freckles though.

When he pointed out an inconsistency in the officer's accusational timeline, the man brought up "an older gal," meaning his mother. He felt his body heat rise, wondering if they'd caught up with her before he did.

"_So tell me, Jack_," the officer continued, glaring, "this hers?"

He threw an old book on the table in front of Jack. His mother's lyric book. Or what he'd thought to be her lyric book all this time. He'd seen her scribbling in it constantly on the road.

His nostrils flared. His mother would never leave that book behind.

His thought process was interrupted when the officer turned to a page with Jack's name jotted on it, along with some numbers.

"35-111," it read. Coordinates.

* * *

><p>In the meantime, Fi managed to escape the hotel undetected. She drove the Mustang to the address she'd found online under the name Joseph Welch, Constance's widower.<p>

She took on the only guise she was comfortable using without Jack there: a reporter with the local paper. She'd thrown her chestnut hair in a bun at the top of her head, and a pen behind her ear for effect.

"Constance, she was the love of my life," the man who answered the door eventually told her, after reluctantly giving up the location of her grave. "Prettiest woman I'd ever known."

"So you had a happy marriage?" Fi asked with a gentile smile.

The man hesitated before responding, "Definitely."

"Well," Fi sighed, "that should do it. Thanks for your time."

She slid a small notepad back into her jacket pocket and turned to leave. An odd feeling stopped her, pushing her to ask the man one last question.

"Mr. Welch? You ever hear of a Woman in White?" she asked sternly.

"A what?" he responded with a furrowed brow.

"A Woman in White," Fi repeated, "or sometimes, a Weeping Woman?"

The man didn't answer, looking her up and down.

"It's a ghost story. Well, it's more of a phenomenon, really," she continued, walking towards him. "Um, they're spirits. They've been sighted for hundred of years. In dozens of places… all different women, who all share the same story."

"Girl, I don't care much for nonsense," the man uttered, turning to walk away.

Fi followed him, unable to stop speaking, years of repressed supernatural research spewing from her lips all at once.

"See, when they were alive, their husbands were unfaithful to them. These women, basically suffering from temporary insanity, murdered their children…"

She raised an eyebrow in response to the man's glare as he faced her.

"… Then once they'd realized what they'd done, they took their own lives. So now their spirits are cursed, walking back-roads, waterways… and if they find an unfaithful man, they kill him. And that man is never seen again."

"You think, you think that has something to do… with Constance, you smart ass?" the man asked, appearing on the verge of tears.

"You tell me," Fi answered bravely.

"I maybe… Maybe I made some mistakes," the man said through quivering lips, "but no matter what I did, Constance would've never killed her own children. Now you get the hell out of here. And you don't come back!"

* * *

><p>Almost a full day had passed and Jack was still being questioned at the station. The interrogation was finally interrupted when a call came in over the radio announcing "shots fired." The cop sitting with Jack handcuffed him to the table, a mistake on his part. The lock on the handcuffs was an easy fix. All it took was a paperclip. The police station cleared out fairly quickly, and Jack was able to make a fast exit out the side door.<p>

"Fake 911 phone call, Fiona. That's pretty illegal," Jack laughed through a payphone a few blocks from the station.

"You're welcome," Fi said back through her cell, keeping her eyes on the road. If she crashed Jack's Mustang, he'd kill her. She was going on about what she'd discovered from Mr. Welch when Jack cut her off.

"Fi, she's gone. Mom left Jericho."

"What? How do you know?"

"I got her lyric book. Turns out lyrics weren't all she's been writing in it."

"She doesn't go anywhere without that thing."

"Well she did this time."

"What's it say?" Fi asked, concerned.

"She left us coordinates."

"Jack, what the hell is going on?" she responded, talking about their mother's suddenly cryptic ways.

Before Jack could answer her, Fi gasped. Something had appeared in the road, causing her to drop her cell phone to the floor. The Mustang swerved once to each side before she regained control of the wheel, driving right through Constance Welch.

"Fi? Fi!" Jack yelled into the phone, hearing the skidding of tires.

Fi slammed on the breaks, trying to catch her breath.


	6. Chapter 6

"Take me home," a haunting voice commanded from the back seat. Fi jumped at the sight of the woman suddenly in the car.

"Take me home!" the ghost repeated.

"No," Fi answered.

At this, the car doors locked shut. Fi pulled on the lock with horror on her face as the car started to drive on its own. She put a hard shoulder against the driver's side door but it wouldn't budge. She stopped struggling as the Mustang pulled itself up to an old abandoned house and shut itself off.

"Don't do this," she calmly pleaded.

The Woman in White ignored her, staring up at the house.

"I can never go home," she said with sadness on her face.

"You're scared to go home…" Fi's mind began ticking. She whipped around in her seat towards the ghost, but Constance had disappeared.

She took a moment to take in her surroundings as Constance reappeared, attacking her by digging a hand into her chest.

"You can't kill me. You're supposed to go after men! Don't you know the rules, you bitch?" she seethed. "And in case you were wondering, I'm not unfaithful either. I've never been."

All that didn't seem to matter to the spirit who continued to claw at her. Fi winced at the sting of her grip. She moved in closer to Fi.

"But _he_ will be," the spirit answered, indicating someone outside the car.

Fi pulled her arm forward, reaching for the car keys, but the ghost had her pinned just out of their reach.

The spirit leaned backward, revealing her true, hideous form. Her hand was still carved into Fi's chest. Fi let out a cry of pain, just as gun shots shattered the driver's side window. Jack lowered his handgun.

The ghost dissipated, and Fi took the opportunity to swiftly sit up in her seat, turning the keys in the ignition.

"I'm taking you home," Fi said with a sideways grin, flooring the gas pedal. The Mustang revved forward, leaving Jack stunned in a cloud of stirred dust.

"Fi!" he shouted, as the car crashed straight through the house.

"Fi!" Jack called again, quickly entering the house through the mess of debris left by the car. He kept his gun drawn as he ran to his sister.

"Fiona? You okay in there?"

"Yeah. Help me?" she responded, stuck in the driver's seat.

Jack reached out an arm and helped his sister out of the car and onto her feet. The siblings paused suddenly at the sight of Constance standing before them, ready to continue her attack. She held in her hands a heavy picture frame.

"Get behind me, Jack," Fi commanded. "She wants you, not me."

The ghost threw the frame to the ground and used her powers to heave a thick chest of drawers in the siblings' direction, pinning them against a wall.

Constance's focus on the two was broken when water began to flood the nearby staircase. Jack and Fi watched on in confusion as the ghost turned her head to the top of the stairs. From where they were pinned they could see two child-sized shadows being cast onto the staircase.

The Woman in White's mouth opened in awe, a fearful expression overcoming her pretty face. The shadows clasped hands and moved impossibly fast down the staircase. Suddenly, the two children stood behind Constance, looking up at her resentfully. They embraced her, unleashing an animalistic scream from the ghost.

Jack and Fi looked on in disbelief as all three spirits turned to water and seeped into the floorboards. They both sighed in relief, freeing themselves by overturning the heavy chest of drawers. They walked over to the wet spot on the floor.

"So this is where she drowned her kids..." Jack said.

"That's why she could never go home. She was too scared to face them."

"You found her weak spot," Jack nodded, adding, "Nice job, Fi," as he pulled her into a hug.

"Wish I could say the same for you," she teased. "What were you thinking shooting Casper in the face, you freak?"

"Hey. It saved your ass," Jack smirked.

"Yeah, whatever. Your help is long overdue."

"What are you talking about?" Jack asked, leaving her side to review the damage to his car.

"Remember our very first ghost sighting back in Chicago? Similar deal - the flying furniture, the waterworks, the family reunion - all me. I solved that case without your help or anyone else's." Fi reflected.

Jack nodded in acknowledgment.

"Sure, but that one wasn't trying to kill us. It wasn't evil."

"Yeah, but it drowned my first laptop…" Fi mumbled.

"Well, I'll tell you another thing," Jack replied, running a hand along the side of the Mustang. "If you screwed up my car, I'll kill you."

Fi shrugged and smiled, shaking her head.

_Same old Jack,_ she thought.

* * *

><p>With the case solved and the Mustang intact, Jack and Fi headed back on the road.<p>

"Okay, here's where Mom went," Fi said holding a flashlight up with her shoulder as she pointed at the map. "Black Water Ridge, Colorado. Hey, isn't that about an hour from Hope Springs? You think she's heading back home?"

Jack shrugged, "How far are we from there now?"

"About 600 miles."

"We can make that by morning," Jack answered excitedly.

Fi looked up from the map, mouth agape.

"Jack," she started, fumbling over her words.

Jack tried to keep an innocent expression on his face, knowing exactly what his sister was trying to say.

"You're not going," he said for her, sounding disappointed.

"The interview's in like ten hours. I've got to be there," Fi explained.

"Yeah. Yeah, whatever," Jack sighed. "I'll take you home."

* * *

><p>"Maybe I can meet up with you later, huh?" Fi asked as she closed the Mustang door behind her.<p>

"Yeah, alright," Jack replied with an unconvincing poker face.

Fi tapped the car twice and waved goodbye before walking towards her apartment.

Jack chewed his lip for a moment, then called out to his sister. She turned back around at his voice.

"You know, we made a hell of a team back there," he told her.

"Yeah," was all she could answer. She'd been waiting to hear those words for years. But she couldn't give up her normalcy that easily. She'd come too far.

She watched Jack drive off, wrestling with her decision to stay at Stanford before convincing herself she'd made the right choice.


	7. Chapter 7

"Jess?" she called, putting her apartment key back in her purse. "You home?"

The apartment was dark and peaceful. She didn't bother to ruin it by flicking on a light. She smiled to herself, proud that she managed to escape the paranormal a second time.

She laid down on her bed, exhausted from her weekend adventure. Just as she closed her eyes, something warm trickled on her forehead. She rolled her neck, mistaking it for a twitching nerve at first, but then a second drop came. She wretched her eyes open in confusion.

What met her stare caused her to gasp inwardly in horror.

Jesse, pinned to the ceiling, bleeding from his torso.

"No!" she cried out, using an arm to sit herself up.

Her heart began to fail her as fire emerged from somewhere behind him, engulfing him in a matter of seconds.

As she watched on helplessly as her boyfriend burned, the image struck a chord in her memory.

_She was three, standing up on her gated bed, the heat on her face, her mother's cries bouncing off the walls as Fi was scooped up in her arms and run over to Jack._

"_Take your sister outside as fast as you can!" Molly commanded, "Now, Jack! Go!"_

Her father. On the ceiling. Burning, just like this. But what about the car crash?

She was too caught up in her thoughts and her inability to save Jesse to remember to run from the flames slowly spreading throughout the room.

The door to her apartment burst inward.

"Fi!" someone called from elsewhere in the apartment.

"Jess!" she screamed, unable to take her eyes from the ceiling.

"Fi!" Jack ran into the bedroom, taking a moment to follow Fi's eyes before grabbing her arm and pulling her off the bed.

"No! No! Jess!" she protested, struggling against her brother.

The smoke was getting thicker. She slipped out of Jack's grip for a split second and he took her back in his grasp, picking her up in his arms and carrying her out of the building.

She kept her eyes locked on her boyfriend as long as she could, calling for him. A ball of fire shot out after them.

* * *

><p>The flashing red lights of the fire truck illuminated the street. Jack took a place in the crowd with some onlookers before turning back toward his sister, who was pulling something from his car trunk. Concerned for her, he joined her side. She was loading a rifle, her eyes dark and determined.<p>

He looked her over, unsure of what he could say. He wanted to comfort her like he used to when they were younger. He wished he could go back to the rational person he used to be, telling her it was just a coincidence, but he knew it wasn't. They would be targeted like this until their destinies were fulfilled. He put a protective arm around his sister.

Fi exhaled, pursing her lips, and threw the rifle back into the trunk.

"We've got work to do."


End file.
